FROM BLACK TO OMBRE IN 2 DAYS

Hey loves! Yaaas, I finally did it! I wanted to go ombre a couple of months now, but it's so easy to maintain jet black hair so I was like "nuuh, next time" haha I can't even tell you how much I love it, in my heart I'll always be a blonde (used to be a silver haired lady, aha)! Now I can finally say for sure: I've done everything to my hair.

I wasn't even planning on doing that, I bought the hair dye out of a sudden while I was shopping. The bad thing was that I had dyed my hair (jet black) a couple of weeks ago, so the colour was still super intense. Unfortunately, It didn't cross my mind to rinse my hair with hot water, clarifying shampoo or dish soap in order to get rid of as much colour as I could. So, if you're planning on changing your colour, and your hair is already dyed, these are great ways to make sure that the previous colour is gonna say "Aa-bye-bye".

1) The first day I bleached the ends of my hair. I sectioned it in two parts and tied my hair to the exact part I wanted the bright blonde to start. It's hard to explain, but take a look at the picture below to understand. I covered the whole lower part with a lot of bleach -I mean, a lot! I used one pack just for the ends, and I 've been adding bleach every 3 minutes because when it dries out it stops "working" (aka lightening your hair). I kept doing that for about 20 minutes. I was really impressed with how quickly the black colour faded. You just have to check it out every 5 minutes to see what colour you want.

Picture found on Pinterest

2) The colour -thank Buddha- didn't turn out too brassy. It was a dark/dirty blonde, pretty much what you see it the photos. After washing just the ends of my hair, I applied the Le Petit Marseiliais mask, it seriously helped a lot, and left it there while I did the next step. What was that? I bleached the middle section of my hair (with 2 packs because it's pretty long). I used this techinque, to make it look more natural, a little bit like balayage. To give you an idea I started from the height of my eyebrows and I stopped where the blonde started (around my shoulder). Never bleach twice the same hair, you don't want it to fall out, girl.

I left the bleach for about 10-15 minutes, because I only wanted to get rid of the black dye. The colour turned out horrible. Super red/orange, so brassy I felt like crying. But don't worry, it's totally normal for the black hair dye to react that way while the color strips out. I was going to fix this the next day anyway. I applied hair mask to my whole hair and left it there overnight. By the way, you can totally skip this part, but I didn't like the intense contrast (black to blonde), so I tried to soften the colour. I was going for a super gradient look.

3) It's the second day of the process. I don't recommend doing this step right after the bleaching. If you can, wait a week and use deep conditioner and masks every day. But, as I told you, my hair looked awful so I couldn't wait, it was nerve-racking. Plus, my hair can handle bleach very well. Sooo, it was time for the hair dye! That's the fun part -at least for me.

At first I applied the Palette Intensive Color 9.1 only to the lower part, where the color was blonde, just to tone it. Then I applied the Palette 5, to the rest of my hair (except the lower blonde part obviously), including the roots, to fix the brassy hair. So, the Palette 5 was from my roots to my shoulder, and the 9.1 from my shoulder and down. I waited about an hour to make sure that all the red undertones would have been gone. The result is what you see. The roots are a warm black colour, the middle is brown and the ends are this dirty blonde that I'm really into!

And that is that! I love the finished look, I actually didn't expect it to turn out this good from the first try, because I've been dying my hair black for almost two years. However, as you can see, it's something pretty doable, but you have to be very careful with the whole process. Not to mention, if you're not good at these things, you should consider going to a professional or asking from a friend who's familiar with hair coloring to do it for you.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional hair stylist or colorist (duh), I'm just telling you my experience, and what worked for me. P.S. My natural hair is a super dark brown/light black colour.